Mr Slobodan Milosevic today blamed nearly a decade of Balkan strife on his war crimes accusers by insisting the West had stoked ethnic conflicts there in a plot to dominate southeastern Europe.
On the fifth day of his landmark trial for genocide and crimes against humanity, the former Yugoslav president firmly rejected responsibility for Europe's worst bloodshed since World War II and portrayed himself as a fervent peacemaker betrayed by big power politics.
"There is an inversion here," he told the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). "The instigators of war are accusing the protagonists of peace".
Mr Milosevic said Western countries had been bent on assuring domination of the Balkans by pitting Muslims, Croats and Serbs against one another during the 1990s. He said the West pushed "secession, separatism, violence, subjugation, in short a new colonialism".
In an often rambling speech made before impassive prosecutors and judges, Mr Milosevic alternately depicted himself as an effective instrument of peace and a helpless bureaucrat unable to keep the Serbian forces in check.
He also accused the tribunal in The Hague of taking comments he made out of context and trying to demonise him as a ruthless demagogue. "It is below my dignity to comment on the various insinuations made here. You are hitting below the belt," he said.
Mr Milosevic repeatedly invoked his role as a peacebroker throughout the Balkan conflicts, particularly at the Dayton negotiations in 1995 that ended the war in Bosnia.
He also denied any links with the rampages attributed to the Bosnia Serb army, saying: "Either de jure or de facto I had no command responsibility over the Yugoslav army".
Milosevic (60) is the first head of state to be tried by an international tribunal for genocide and crimes against humanity. He is charged with 66 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, deportation and persecution during the wars in Bosnia, Croatia (1991-1995) and Kosovo (1998-1999).
AFP